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IBMT AGM EC Report 2017.Pdf INTERNATIONAL BRIGADE MEMORIAL TRUST www.international-brigades.org.uk Annual General Meeting: Cardiff, 14 October 2017 EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE REPORT 1/ INTRODUCTION Scotland Secretary; Mary Greening: Membership We are pleased to report another active and Secretary and Wales Secretary; Christopher Hall: productive year for the IBMT since our 2016 Annual Merchandise Officer; Jim Jump: Editor; Marshall General Meeting in Dublin. As well as our regular Mateer: Film Coordinator; Manus O’Riordan: Ireland annual events – the Len Crome Memorial Conference Secretary; Marlene Sidaway: Exhibition Coordinator; in Manchester and our commemoration at the Richard Thorpe: Education Officer and Facebook International Brigade memorial in London, both of Coordinator. Pauline Fraser is responsible for dealing which were well attended and received positive with general email enquiries sent to the IBMT. feedback – other highlights of the past 12 months have been the play ‘Dare Devil Rides to Jarama’ and 3/ IBMT PREMISES AND STAFF the unveiling of the memorial to the Oxfordshire The IBMT continues to rent an office and storage volunteers. space at its registered office at Marx House, 37a The past year also saw the death of Stan Clerkenwell Green, London EC1R 0DU. We use the Hilton, almost certainly the last surviving services of freelance helpers at the office, who are International Brigade volunteer from Britain and paid for the equivalent of seven days per month, to Ireland. Stan’s death on 21 October 2016 at the age of ease the administrative workload on the Trust, to 98 marked the end of an important chapter in the manage the production of the IBMT eNewsletter and development of the IBMT, which was initially to undertake other project work. established in 2001 by surviving veterans and a group The Executive Committee is currently of family members, friends and historians of the examining the possibility of employing an IBMT International Brigades. The Trust has evolved National Coordinator & Fundraiser to take on the considerably since then. It is no coincidence therefore management of the Trust’s activities and to improve that the Executive Committee has over the past year our fundraising and income streams. A four-year been looking to the future, in particular the Trust’s business plan is being drawn up to fund the finances, constitutional arrangements and staffing. appointment. Our aim is to ensure the long-term viability and efficacy of the IBMT in order to help keep alive the 4/ MEMBERSHIP story of the volunteers, who must continue to be a Total membership on 31 December 2016, broken beacon to all those on the side of international down by region, was as follows (figures on 31 August solidarity, social justice and anti-fascism. 2017 in brackets): – London & South East 341 (310) 2/ EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE – Scotland 131 (108) The Executive Committee has met three times over – North West 125 (105) the past 12 months, on 5 November 2016 and on 4 – Midlands 104 (83) February and 3 June 2017. Officers, as elected at the – South West 62 (59) 2016 AGM, are Richard Baxell (Chair), Jim Jump – Yorkshire & North East 61 (58) (Secretary) and Manuel Moreno (Treasurer); in – Wales 42 (38) addition, Marlene Sidaway continues to serve as – Ireland 38 (32) President. The other Executive Committee members – Rest of the world 48 (38) are Mike Arnott, Pauline Fraser, Mary Greening, Total: 952 (831) Christopher Hall, Charles Jepson, Nina Londragan, Membership figures, broken down by membership Dolores Long, Marshall Mateer, Manus O’Riordan, category, on 31 August 2017 were (last year’s Danny Payne and Richard Thorpe. equivalent figures in brackets): As well as the responsibilities of the elected – Individual 338 (365) officers, the Executive Committee has assigned the – Household 259 (274) following duties to EC members: Mike Arnott: – Unwaged 203 (208) – Honorary 12 (13) substantially to an average of 365 daily (245 in – Affiliated 19 (25) 2015/16), including more than 53,000 first-time visits – Lapsed 224 (180) over the course of the whole year. Total (excluding lapsed): 831 (885) The number of IBMT Twitter followers is also Members pay their subs using a variety of methods increasing and now stands at nearly 2,500. Our such as cash, cheque, direct debit, PayPal and bank tweets are also viewable on our website. transfer. Reminders have been sent out to those who The Facebook site is being used to promote have not paid for this year. Those who do not pay awareness of International Brigade memorials, as promptly pose a considerable problem for the IBMT well as to pass on details of events and other items of as it is costly and time-consuming to send out interest. At least one item has been scheduled to reminders. appear every day – usually with several others being posted as they appear elsewhere on social media. 5/ BALLOTING During the anniversary of Jarama ‘live’ reports of The Executive Committee has continued to review events 80 years ago were posted. The membership of procedures for electing the IBMT Executive the Facebook group has gradually grown and now Committee. stands at 4,723. There is general agreement to move towards a In an effort to reach a younger audience the ‘single constituency’ election system, in which IBMT has opened an Instagram account (ibmt1936), members would elect an Executive Committee and and the aim is to schedule at least one post a day. the Trust’s officers (Chair, Secretary and Treasurer) The theme of ‘Children and the Spanish Civil would be elected by the Executive Committee itself War’ launched a new IBMT online service using rather than in separate elections at an Annual General Pinterest. See over 200 images on the subject at: Meeting. Such a system would be more affordable if www.pinterest.co.uk/IBMT_SCW, along with other balloting were to be conducted online or by post. In themes such as the Battle of the Ebro, Catalonia addition a single constituency system would allow 1932-39 and the British Battalion. A guide to using the Trust to introduce phased elections to the Pinterest has been compiled by the IBMT Film Executive Committee, whereby three or four members Coordinator and is available on request. would be elected at each year’s AGM to serve a term of office of three years or more. 9/ FILMS & PHOTOGRAPHY The estimated costs of individual balloting The IBMT is creating a series of videos showing systems to elect all members of the Executive aspects of our history and work. The first two titles Committee would be £3,000 for a postal ballot, are in preparation: £2,700 for a combined postal/online ballot, and – The national memorial: how it was commissioned, £1,900 for an online ballot. Given the Trust’s financial created, unveiled, maintained and is used. constraints, the Executive Committee is not currently – The IBMT database of volunteers: how it has been pursuing any of these options. assembled over the years, the work of Jim Carmody and how it is being developed for online publication, 6/ IBMT MAGAZINE including the ‘Moscow Archive’ and the International Three issues of the IBMT Magazine have been Brigade Association archive at the Marx Memorial published since our last AGM. The magazine remains Library. a key means of communication to members and the Future topics will include the British Battalion general public. The Editor wishes to thank all those banners and International Brigade memorials in who over the past 12 months have submitted articles, Britain and Ireland. The video ‘IBMT Montage 2017’ images and letters for publication. (https://youtu.be/DSn0DntjdKE) was shown at the Len Crome Memorial Conference in Manchester. 7/ IBMT eNEWSLETTER Background notes prepared by the IBMT Film Since our last AGM, 23 issues of the fortnightly IBMT Coordinator are available on films and the eNewsletter have been produced (with another issue International Brigade and Spanish Civil War and on due immediately before this AGM) and emailed to David Leach’s film ‘Voices from a Mountain’. In IBMT members. preparation are notes on ‘Land and Freedom’, ‘Mourir à Madrid’ and comics and the International Brigade 8/ IBMT ONLINE PRESENCE and Spanish Civil War. Our online presence continues to be an essential part Images and videos from the 2017 Len Crome of the IBMT’s communications strategy. There are Memorial Conference, the annual commemoration, plans to redesign and expand the website, which the Oxford memorial unveiling, the Basque children’s should be implemented year. Over the past 12 months plaque unveiling in Hull and other events can be seen page views of the IBMT website have increased at www.flickr.com/photos/ibmt and www.youtube.com/user/IBMTnews. host commemorations at Jarama in February, Brunete in July and Madrid in November. A group of more than 10/ RESEARCH AND ARCHIVES 60 IBMT supporters attended AABI’s weekend of Work is continuing on an open-access online events to mark the 80th anniversary of the Battle of biographical database of all the volunteers from Jarama on 17/18 February earlier this year. On the Britain and Ireland, which we hope will go online weekend before a group of more than 100 trade when the newly redesigned IBMT website becomes unionists and others attended a commemorative active (see item above). weekend organised independently by some IBMT The IBMT’s cache of archival material has members in the North-West. been donated to the Marx Memorial Library. There is a formal donor’s agreement between our two 15/ MEMORIALS organisations, with our donations now called the Battle of the Ebro (London): Shadow Foreign IBMT Archive. This follows the Library’s successful Secretary Emily Thornberry MP unveiled the original application for funding from the National Archives to Battle of the Ebro plaque at its new location in the catalogue its extensive International Brigade and memorial garden of London’s Marx Memorial Library Spanish Civil War archive, which is due to be on 30 October 2016.
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